State v. Ellefson

287 N.W.2d 493, 1980 S.D. LEXIS 246
CourtSouth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 16, 1980
Docket12675
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 287 N.W.2d 493 (State v. Ellefson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering South Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Ellefson, 287 N.W.2d 493, 1980 S.D. LEXIS 246 (S.D. 1980).

Opinions

FOSHEIM, Justice.

A jury found the defendant guilty of the crime of rape stemming from sexual intercourse with a child under the age of fifteen years. He was sentenced to a term of ten years. We affirm the conviction but remand for reconsideration of the sentence.

The defendant questions the constitutionality of the statute (SDCL 22-22-1(4)) under which he was convicted. As it relates to this case, the statute reads:

Rape is an act of sexual penetration accomplished with any person other than the actor’s spouse under any one or more of the following circumstances:
(4) Where the victim is less than fifteen years of age.

The defendant contends that in enacting the challenged statute, the legislature intended to incorporate a presumption of incapacity to consent rather than a rule of substantive law. Defendant then argues that the presumption, whether rebuttable or conclusive, is arbitrary and irrational, and thus unconstitutional under the test framed in Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463, 63 S.Ct. 1241, 87 L.Ed. 1519 (1943), and Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 89 S.Ct. 1532, 23 L.Ed.2d 57 (1969).

The territorial legislature acknowledged the common law prohibition against carnal knowledge with a female under age ten in the penal code of 1877.1 The age of consent has fluctuated over the years,2 but otherwise the rape statute withstood revision until 1975.

During this time span, Ex parte Nesson, 25 S.D. 49, 125 N.W. 124 (1910), was decided, wherein we rejected the contention that this statute established a conclusive presumption:

This statute does not presume to declare that it shall be conclusively presumed that all females under 18 years of age are [495]*495virtuous, or that they are mentally incapable of determining the element of right and wrong as relating to sexual acts, and therefore mentally incapable of consenting to such acts, but it declares a rule of public policy, under which, as stated above, it attempts to protect all females of immature age, and through them the public, from the consequences, not only of their, lack of judgment, but of lack of virtue where the same may be lacking
. The common expression used by the courts “that the female is conclusively presumed incapable of consenting to the act of sexual intercourse” is inaccurate. It would be more correct to say that the consent of the female is void [citation omitted]; that is, void as to the male.

25 S.D. at 53-4, 125 N.W. at 126.

It is true, as defendant notes, that we have used language since Nesson indicating that the question of consent is for the jury. See: State v. Fox, 72 S.D. 119, 31 N.W.2d 451 (1948). Any such deviation from Nesson was laid to rest in State v. Fulks, 83 S.D. 433, 160 N.W.2d 418 (1968), wherein we held that sexual intercourse with a female under the statutory age, not the wife of the perpetrator, with or without her consent, constitutes the crime of rape and that an arbitrary age of consent in such cases has been established by our legislature as a matter of public policy.

Immediately prior to 1975, the pertinent parts of the statute read as follows:

Rape is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a female, not the wife of the perpetrator under either of the following circumstances:
(1) Where the female is under the age of sixteen years[.]

In 1975, the legislature substantially revised SDCL 22-22-1 to read, in pertinent part:

Rape is an act of sexual penetration accomplished with any person under any one or more of the following circumstances:
(2) Where the victim is incapable, because of physical or mental incapacity, of giving consent to such act; a person sixteen years of age or less shall be presumed incapable of consenting to such acts[.]

In State v. Heisinger, 252 N.W.2d 899, 902 (S.D.1977), we acknowledged our pre-1975 revision position in this language:

A statutory presumption is a rule of evidence and must be carefully distinguished from statutory provisions which create substantive law, as the former provision had done..

We then construed the 1975 amendment to create a rebuttable presumption that a person sixteen years of age or less was incapable of consenting to sexual acts. We reaffirmed that construction in State v. Watson, 264 N.W.2d 519 (S.D.1978).

It appears that the legislature, by 1977 S.D.Sess. Laws, Ch. 189, § 51, essentially reenacted the pre-1975 rape law. The defendant was charged and convicted under the 1977 version. On reconsidering its experiment with the 1975 revision, the legislature apparently determined that, as a matter of policy, our traditional black and white approach was preferable to the troublesome evidentiary problems involved in the gray zone of rebuttable or conclusive presumptions regarding capacity to consent.

Having reached this conclusion, we avoid the constitutional presumption arguments of appellant. His further contention that the trial court erred in refusing evidence of facts relating to the victim’s ability to consent to sexual intercourse is thus also immaterial.

The defendant objects to jury instruction No. 12 on the ground that it shifted the burden of proof from the State to the defendant in violation of his constitutional rights. The challenged instruction reads as follows:

A charge such as that made against the defendant in this case is one which, generally speaking, is easily made, and once made is difficult to disprove even if the [496]*496defendant is innocent.

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Bluebook (online)
287 N.W.2d 493, 1980 S.D. LEXIS 246, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-ellefson-sd-1980.